


Thirteen Kisses

by sparklight



Category: Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the beginning, to the end; thirteen (with some modification) kisses exchanged between two scientists, two Decepticons and an Autobot and a Decepticon. They're all the same two individuals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen Kisses

**One:**  
Solstice, an orn before they leave on their first exploration and research mission. He hadn't intended it, but the lights had caught just _so_ along the edges of Starscream's wings and down his cockpit. The kiss is light and hesitant and barely creates friction, even less _static_. They both ignore it happened for orns after that.

**Two:**  
An orn into their mission and they're riding the tail of a comet to analyse its elements. Starscream lands on the comet itself against all protocol and hopelessly contaminates any samples they could take henceforth. Jetfire catches up, sears through space alongside him and their optics meet. Starscream pulls him in and in the vacuum the kiss burns.

**Three:**  
There are many thirds. Under ringed alien skies on rocky worlds or darting through gas-giants' atmospheres. Back in the lab in the Academy, and in the shadows at the back of lecture halls during lectures Starscream made them late to, and he'd protest the kisses because they steal his attention away but Starscream's smirk tastes of lightning. Riding an electric storm over the Rust Sea, passing close enough to each other the static between their frames are kisses, just like the brief, harsh slide of lips against metal or their lips in too-fast passing as they outfly the lightning.

**Four:**  
Starscream's been gone for a mega-cycle and when he comes back he bursts in trailing overconfidence and exhilariation. Dents are scattered over his frame and he sports warp in his left cheek bad enough it has split the protoform metal. Jetfire traces it with a single finger, frowning. He opens his mouth but doesn't get the chance to ask as Starscream yanks him down, lips scraping together and teeth catching. 

It's vicious in a way it's never been before.

It tastes of spilt energon, but it comes neither from Starscream nor Jetfire.

**Five:**  
The fifths are scattered, bestowed between the furious delight of arena battles and the diminishing space missions. Jetfire gets used to the sharper, more _demanding_ kisses. Not that Starscream didn't demand before, but... there's a difference. A difference that comes with dents or torn metal, and quite a few times with dislocated limbs and Starscream's affront or pleased smugness. All of it gets turned into smouldering, electrified friction as their tongues tangle and lips slide together.

**Six:**  
This kiss comes after a 'yes' and Starscream practically crashes into Jetfire, using angle, force and the element of surprise to topple him backwards. The kiss has words dispersed throughout, murmured against Jetfire's lips or over the comm., about all that's going to happen now, the successes, the _power_. The kiss burns, and it burns away most of the questions, the _doubts_ he has over joining the Decepticons even with his agreements, along with it. 

It did seem like more could be accomplished this way.

**Seven:**  
The sevenths are fewer than the others. Starscream is present, and yet distant. The light is sharp where it falls away from his angles, the light from his optics gaining a razor edge, and he just _keeps getting more honed_. 

It's not a good thing. 

That becomes far too obvious when the kisses turn from _desperate and few_ to _cutting and then none_ as Jetfire tries to confront him and Starscream basically storms out. He wonders when Starscream will break.

**Eight:**  
Half a joor before he leaves a million years after he joined, he catches Starscream in the Second-in-Command's own seldom-used lab. Asks something he can't remember after, can't remember Starscream's reply either, just the tone; sharp enough to not just hurt _him_ , but hurt Starscream too.  
It's frustration turned back against the wielder, an animal lashing out until it's biting itself even as it kills its opponents and wins. There's nothing he can do here, even _if_ he could stay for _Starscream_ , which he can't. Starscream will have to get himself into balance. So he catches Starscream's chin, ignores the hum of the null-rays as they're jerked up to point at him and then down again, but doesn't _power down_.

He barely brushes their lips together, a surer, softer echo of the first kiss. 

Then he leaves.

**Nine:**  
The ninths are not kisses, they're traded laser fire and fists and words as burning as the lasers.

**Ten:**  
The _Ark_ will leave soon. He wasn't one of the ones chosen to go with it, but Ultra Magnus says he needs him on Cybertron so maybe that's just as well. For as long as there is a Cybertron. They're fighting a slow, inevitable shut-down, it seems. He considers not following the very suspicious ping. In the end he does, and Starscream's voice is harsh, accusing.

His lips and hands are surprisingly soft, however. It might do, even if he's still angry. They both are.

**Eleven:**  
He's not sure it even happened, really. All he remembers is the warped coldness from the ice pressing in everywhere, and a smudged, indistinct shadow that briefly presses against the other side of the ice, level with his helm. Conciousness is gone again after that, his low energon levels dragging him down into not-quite-stasis-lock again.

Starscream will never admit to having boosted himself up to hover faceplate-to-covered-faceplate, a few feet of ice between them, and leaning in. 

He was not that weak.

**Twelve:**  
It comes after spending most of the evening locked in the room on the _Orion_ , sitting on opposite ends of the room. Jetfire gets up to open the door to get the energon cubes Ratchet gives him, and while Ratchet offers him to drink it elsewhere, he admits it's probably better Jetfire stays to keep an optic on Starscream. There's a cutting reply from Starscream, of course, and Jetfire finds himself chuckling. It was a long time ago since he actually laughed at Starscream's replies, not frowned or felt his wings twitch at the malicious _brutality_ of them. He holds out the cube and Starscream stares at it. 

Up at him. 

Then forgoes the cube and the kiss is far too achingly familiar to be quite fair. Then Starscream pushes Jetfire away, snatches his cube up and retreats to his seat, glowering into the energon.

**Thirteen:**  
Jetfire stares at Starscream, who isn't going to admit to the burn of that stare, the way it punches right in past every single barrier he had _thought_ he'd put up, and how _dare he_? Those blue optics narrow, and then Jetfire crosses the few steps between them, leans down...

"You owe me." It's a whisper against his lips, a chain, a plea, a quiet, sure demand.

It can't really count as a kiss, not as brief as it is and then Jetfire's gone, expecting him to risk his own metal to take the runt with him as he gets out of this prehistoric pit.

Who does Jetfire _think he is_ that he will do that?

... The weight of Bumblebee in his arms as he flies topside seems far too light for the heaviness of Jetfire's words, for the weight of those lips against his.

It hadn't even been a proper kiss, and then it's too late for any others.

(Primus:  
There are others, of course. Jetfire survives. Or he doesn't. Starscream lives... later doesn't. But there are other kisses.)


End file.
